After driving about 400 miles and taking in the Grand Canyon along the way, we finally rolled into Page at about 8pm last night. We needed to stay for a couple of nights, as the next photography tour of Antelope Canyon isn’t until tomorrow.

We found a great place to eat breakfast, but we forgot what it was called…

But we did like Ken’s Old West for dinner, it’s a steak house just around the back of the Best Western hotel.

The Grand Canyon is big. I mean really big. You won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly big it really is. I mean, you might think it’s a long way down the road to the coffee shop, but that’s just peanuts to the Grand Canyon…

It’s so big it’s almost impossible to photograph. This is my second visit and I still have to find a way to capture the feeling of standing on the south rim and looking at a hole many miles in diameter on film.

(Suzannah took the last picture)

We also met a ram who was a full time male model.

He showed us some of his signature looks…

Blue Steel

Le Tigre

Magnum

…and did we mention the Elk?

We got up really early yesterday morning to catch the sunrise over the strip. One of the best places to do this is the top of the Rio parking lot:

We had a long way to go, so we stopped off at the Peppermill for a bloody great big breakfast (tm).

Then after only 10 minutes cursing and shouting we got the GPS system hooked up to MapPoint and we were on our way…

The Mandalay Bay hotel added an extra tower a couple of years ago.. Called ‘THEhotel’ (sic) it adds a whole bunch more rooms and is positioned to give you the best view of the strip from the top.

This is where The Mix restaurant and lounge is situated. As you can see from the pictures the decor is pretty darned cool ™. The view is quite spectacular. A glass elevator takes you directly to the top on the outside of the building.

We had a fabulous meal, with excellent service at an acceptable price ($200-$300) considering the nature of the venue.

The Mix lounge

The Restaurant

…and the view.

If you are a photographer like me, do yourself a favour take a night off, or you’ll spend the whole night out on the balcony trying to photograph the strip. I recommend you just enjoy the ride!